Don't break habits, transform them

In his breakthrough bestseller, The Power of Habit, New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg uses science to pull back the curtain on some of our most mystifying behaviors—and reveals how we can change them.When you get down to it, it seems like a lot of the time we're pretty oblivious about why we do the things we do! Why do you think...

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Business people—and the people who work for them—are forever looking for ways to be more efficient, more inspired, more informed. This quartet of books fits the profile: from the stock market to the Internet, business books to problem-solving, each of these titles will edify and entertain.Problem-solving primerProblem Solving 101: A Simple Book for Smart People started out as a book...

Secrets of success for recent grads

Working as a waitress at T.G.I. Friday's, Ann Patchett couldn't help but wonder why she had landed in such a line of work after six years of higher education. Based on the commencement address she gave at her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College, What now? follows the renowned novelist through college and beyond, with inspiring and humorous anecdotes of the many stops and starts in her...

Making your money work for you

Check out Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer). You may know Cramer from his high-energy appearances on CNBC's Mad Money. A former hedge fund manager, he's intense and passionate about making your money do the most for you. In Stay Mad, he targets the financial novice who invests in a 401(k) to save money for retirement but wants his or...

The keys to staying power

Why do we remember some advertising jingles and not others? How did we learn to wear seatbelts? Why do we scan food labels looking for trans fats? Because of sticky ideas, the memorable messages that catch and hold our attention. Dan Heath, an educational publisher, and Chip Heath, a Stanford Business School professor, offer these examples and many more in Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive...

The line of fire

Hard-hitting advice from The Donald Donald Trump. The name carries its own exclamation point. To the man who wears it, though, it's more than a name it's also a "brand" that signifies excellence, decisiveness, risk-taking, flamboyance and an ego the size of Gibraltar (one of the few choice properties, by the way, that The Donald doesn't yet own). In his new book, Trump: How To Get Rich, the...

On the front lines of the cola wars

Thirsting for another expose? Check out The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company. After following the company for the past five years, New York Times writer Constance L. Hays gives the not-so-pretty facts behind the legend of the world's most famous brand. Coke is truly a 300-pound gorilla on the supermarket shelves, and the guys running the show love nothing more than throwing...

Summer reading for the ambitious

I'm planning a trip to Miami, and one of the most important packing decisions involves which books to bring. A gripping story with interesting, unique characters is a must, but I'm not filling my suitcase with fictional thrillers. Instead, I've found three new business books that deliver suspense and adventure with real-life stories about a cocky inventor, a fearless road-tripper and a witty...

The business of giving

Do we all approach the giving season with anxiety and trepidation? Do we wonder if a sister-in-law will read too much into a gift of Time Management From the Inside Out? Does the boss already own Who Moved My Cheese? When it comes to gift giving, there's no limit on the amount of anxiety many of us create for ourselves. The truth is plain: readers love to get books but some gift givers are...

Briefly noted In The Great American Tax Dodge (Little, Brown, $22.95, ISBN 0316811351), Time Inc. senior writers Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele take on the inequities and iniquities of the American tax system. In the tradition of firebrand financial populism exemplified by William Greider's Who Will Tell the People?, they expose the loopholes that allow thousands of people with...